Watching the news can become draining, even depressing especially if you’re a person of color. It’s hard to ignore the string of police killings that have taken place over last few months.

After 11 year old Tidiani Epps Jr completed an assignment where he drew a picture of how he viewed the world today his school counselor recommended he seek a mental health evaluation at a crisis center.

Epps drew a picture of a man hanging from a tree, with Klu Klux Klan members standing next to the tree and Black Lives Matter written on the drawing. This made his teacher believe he may have been suicidal even after giving “healthy” answers to a series of questions about his mental health.

“In this picture, I was trying to describe what was going on in the world, and what happened back then…It’s what happened back then, and a piece of what happened back then is still here today in the present, like racism,” Epps explained.

This concern is not alarming once you find out that 79 percent of faculty and staff is white while only 7 percent of the students are white. A study has been done to show that white teachers are more likely to suspend and punish black students as oppose to white who exhibit similar behavior.

Shaun R. Harper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies race in education and reviewed Epps’ drawing and said the school’s reaction appeared ridiculous. Professor Harper said, “I was impressed that an 11-year-old could offer such a sophisticated cultural critique of the realities of race in America and the persistence of state-sanctioned violence against black people…I did not see a suicidal kid, but instead a young black social scientist, a genius.” He also believed the lack of diversity lead to the overreaction of the drawing.

We need to start paying attention and demand change in our kids’ schools. Can they truly receive a quality education when their teachers are so far removed and understand little to nothing about them or their culture?